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We are bound however to enquire under what mode unity is
contained in Being. How is what is termed the "dividing"
effected- especially the dividing of the genera Being and unity?
Is it the same division, or is it different in the two cases?
First then: In what sense, precisely, is any given particular
called and known to be a unity? Secondly: Does unity as used of
Being carry the same connotation as in reference to the Absolute?
Unity is not identical in all things; it has a different
significance according as it is applied to the Sensible and the
Intellectual realms- Being too, of course, comports such a
difference- and there is a difference in the unity affirmed among
sensible things as compared with each other; the unity is not the
same in the cases of chorus, camp, ship, house; there is a
difference again as between such discrete things and the
continuous. Nevertheless, all are representations of the one
exemplar, some quite remote, others more effective: the truer
likeness is in the Intellectual; Soul is a unity, and still more
is Intellect a unity and Being a unity.
When we predicate Being of a particular, do we thereby predicate
of it unity, and does the degree of its unity tally with that of
its being? Such correspondence is accidental: unity is not
proportionate to Being; less unity need not mean less Being. An
army or a choir has no less Being than a house, though less
unity.
It would appear, then, that the unity of a particular is related
not so much to Being as to a standard of perfection: in so far as
the particular attains perfection, so far it is a unity; and the
degree of unity depends on this attainment. The particular
aspires not simply to Being, but to Being-in-perfection: it is in
this strain towards their perfection that such beings as do not
possess unity strive their utmost to achieve it.
Things of nature tend by their very nature to coalesce with each
other and also to unify each within itself; their movement is not
away from but towards each other and inwards upon themselves.
Souls, moreover, seem to desire always to pass into a unity over
and above the unity of their own substance. Unity in fact
confronts them on two sides: their origin and their goal alike
are unity; from unity they have arisen, and towards unity they
strive. Unity is thus identical with Goodness [is the universal
standard of perfection]; for no being ever came into existence
without possessing, from that very moment, an irresistible
tendency towards unity.
From natural things we turn to the artificial. Every art in all
its operation aims at whatsoever unity its capacity and its
models permit, though Being most achieves unity since it is
closer at the start.
That is why in speaking of other entities we assert the name
only, for example man; when we say "one man," we have in mind
more than one; and if we affirm unity of him in any other
connection, we regard it as supplementary [to his essence]: but
when we speak of Being as a whole we say it is one Being without
presuming that it is anything but a unity; we thereby show its
close association with Goodness.
Thus for Being, as for the others, unity turns out to be, in some
sense, Principle and Term, not however in the same sense as for
things of the physical order- a discrepancy leading us to infer
that even in unity there are degrees of priority.
How, then, do we characterize the unity [thus diverse] in Being?
Are we to think of it as a common property seen alike in all its
parts? In the first place, the point is common to lines and yet
is not their genus, and this unity we are considering may also be
common to numbers and not be their genus- though, we need hardly
say, the unity of Unity-Absolute is not that of the numbers, one,
two and the rest. Secondly, in Being there is nothing to prevent
the existence of prior and posterior, simple and composite: but
unity, even if it be identical in all the manifestations of
Being, having no differentiae can produce no species; but
producing no species it cannot be a genus.
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